Toshiba Calls Chip Industry Group Forecast 'Optimistic'

Toshiba Calls Chip Industry Group Forecast 'Optimistic'

An executive at Japan's Toshiba Corp warned that a chip industry group's sales forecast was "very optimistic" and said the firm will need to reassess its weak operations to weather the sector's worst ever downturn.
Slumping demand and excess capacity have caused semiconductor prices to plunge, pushing Toshiba's chip business to a 59.5 billion yen ($639 million) operating loss for the April-September period.



"Considering recent economic conditions, even this figure seems to be very optimistic to me," he said at Semicon Japan, the world's largest exhibition of chip-making equipment.

Industry group World Semiconductor Trade Statistics last month cut its forecast for global chip sales, saying that they would fall 2.2 percent in 2009 followed by 6.5 percent growth in 2010.